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Spotify has acquired Mediachain, the New York-based startup behind an open source peer-to-peer database and protocol for registering, identifying, and tracking creative works across the internet. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Launched in 2016 with seed backing from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square Ventures, Mediachain has been working toward using blockchain technology to entrench timestamps and data regarding ownership within a specific media asset. It’s all about enabling creators and rightsholders to prove they are the owner of a piece of work — in Spotify’s case, music — and receive payment.

The problem for legitimate companies, such as Spotify, is that they may try to pay artists and publishers but often don’t know who to pay. This is perhaps more of a problem with smaller artists or indie labels. Just last month, Spotify reached a $30 million settlement with a publishing group over unpaid royalties and agreed to establish best practices to make a “reasonable effort” to match all music streams with rightsholders.

Blockchain technology has enabled the bitcoin cryptocurrency to flourish through a decentralized database, where the ownership of specific tokens and their values are recorded, and Mediachain has been working to enable a similar setup in music. “A music blockchain would be a single place to publish all information about who made what song, without having to trust a third-party organization,” Mediachain cofounder Jesse Walden has said previously.

Now Spotify is bringing Brooklyn-based Mediachain to work in its New York office to “help further Spotify’s journey toward a more fair, transparent, and rewarding music industry for creators and rights owners,” according to a press release.

Much like its refreshed licensing arrangements with labels, bringing Mediachain on board is all about demonstrating that it’s doing its very best to ensure artists are fairly compensated for their work.